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Today, it is my unfortunate duty to announce that Kingdoms of Resdayn is now officially on indefinite hiatus. To sort of explain, I received a message from the bank last week notifying me that my balance was running low. I immediately made a deposit, but when I started going over the budget, I found that the Minecraft server was by far my biggest non-essential expense, and that there was no way I could continue to afford it in the coming months. Given this development, and the fact that I just don’t have the time to run a Minecraft server properly these days, I’ve decided to cancel the server and put up the server files for download for anyone who wants a copy of the current world.

Indeed, you can now find a Server Downloads page over on the top bar, and you’ll find downloads for the Old World (December 2011~December 2014) and the current world (December 2014~August 2015) on that page. Fair warning, the current world is about a 1gb download and the old world is 32gb-ish.

Now this hasn’t been an easy decision, but the last year has been pretty rough for Kingdoms of Resdayn. Bukkit, thanks to what can only be described as complete stupidity on Mojang’s part, ceased releasing new updates for bukkit servers. We then had to downgrade the server in December due to financial reasons, and of course after that we had to switch to Spigot and lost most of our plugins, which were no longer supported. As if that weren’t enough, many of the plugins we used to employ on the server have now been hidden behind a paywall, like mcMMO, forcing us to either abandon them entirely or use outdated versions that are still free. It really does seem mind-boggling to me that while the whole Skyrim paid mods fiasco was going on, somehow Spigot Minecraft mods went pay-only without anyone noticing. You can check this out for yourself on Spigot’s website (though you actually need to have an account for the paid-mods section to pop up), and a rather large number of mods are now behind the dreaded paywall.

Given all of this and my lack of time and money to keep Kingdoms of Resdayn going, it really only seems prudent to put Kingdoms of Resdayn on hiatus. I’m unwilling to say this is the absolute end to Resdayn, since if I ever do have the time and money again, I’d like to start the server back up, or if someone else wants to take the server files from the download section and start their own servers, they could and in a way that’ll keep Resdayn alive.

And for the record, before someone brings it up, asking for donations will not solve all of the problems Resdayn currently faces. While someone may be able to donate enough money to keep the server going for another few months, given my lack of time and the ever-present need to update and configure plugins and server software, it would really be better off for that person to keep their money and maybe start their own server with the Kingdoms of Resdayn files if they have the time required to dedicate to such an endeavor.

Anyway, I do want to apologize to you all, I know Kingdoms of Resdayn has been a place a lot of you have called home over the past nearly four years, and I know a lot of people, like Japdragon, still had plans and designs in mind for building things on the server, and I hate to pull the rug out from underneath you all like this, but there’s no getting around that the money and time to keep the server going just isn’t there. We had a lot of great times on the server, and a lot of great memories, and with any luck you all will be able to use the server files to keep Resdayn alive well into the future.

Best of luck to everyone, and rest assured this website, and the server downloads, will remain available for a long while yet, so feel free to stop by and let us know if you’ve got a new server up and running or just want to chat!

As some of you may already know if you’ve been checking the steam group page, the official download for the old server files is now online. Fair warning, these files are quite large, about 10.5~11gb in total size and unpacked are well over 30gb. I apologize for the long delay in getting these files online, the problem stemmed from the fact that I have a very limited bandwidth connection, so uploading a large file is somewhat difficult. But in any event, it’s available for download now on DropBox, and probably will be for the next few months. I’ll have to take it down eventually purely owing to the fact that DropBox hosting of large files isn’t free, but it will be available for the foreseeable future.

Now it should be mentioned that you will need WinRAR or 7Zip to open the file archives. After that installation is simple, if you’re using it for a single player game, copy the world files to your save game folder (typically found under C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\saves). It should appear in your save selection when you next launch Minecraft. You should also feel free to use the files on your own private servers, if you have the space for it.

The next bit of news is that we need new admins and recruiters to manage the server.

As some of you may already know, I currently run the Morrowind Modding Showcases channel on YouTube, which was recently featured by Bethesda Softworks (aka the guys who made Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim) on their blog last week. The channel is a ton of work to maintain, growing from the original format of one video a week showcasing 12 mods from the community to a channel of over 70 videos, with an official schedule of four videos a week (though that’s rarely met), including trailers, modder interviews, mod reviews, and the core showcases. The point is, I now spend some 30+ hours a week working on the channel, pretty much all of my spare time, so I don’t quite have the ability to successfully monitor the server like I used to.

At the same time, many of our core staff are no longer around to assist either, which means there’s no one around to help, and no one around to direct recruitment either. I would like to get three new admins on the server to help keep things under control. If you’re interested in the position, please post your qualifications in the Admin Requests section of the forums. Please include your age, time with the server, and any past moderating experiences you may have. I’ll consider all applications and approve people for adminship on a person-by-person basis.

In yet other news, we’re still behind on server plugins. I would like to take the next few weeks to track down plugins to replace our missing grief protection plugins before opening up the server once again to recruitment. Once recruitment is open though, I would like to get a couple of dedicated recruiters to make the rounds of the various server advertising websites. Finally, our current spawn is something of a mess. It’s disorganized and just flings people out into the wilderness without much preparation. If someone has a plan for a new spawn design, I would be open to hearing it and I would be happy to provide the materials for it.

On a closing note, I would like to reassure everyone that I do plan to keep paying for the server for the foreseeable future, even if I’m not around much to directly overlook things.

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay in getting back to you all, it’s been a hectic weekend. First thing’s first, the new IP Address is here: 198.23.144.117

Now, as for what happened, well we never quite figured that one out. Tech Support thought it was the server node, so we changed IP addresses in order to try and fix the problem. Only that didn’t work, so after nothing else fixed the issue, I did a server wipe, which led to another problem. I had downloaded the world files with the intention to bring them back online via FTP, only the server had some FTP hiccups so it ended up taking a good 10 hours to get everything back up.

Long story short, everything should be back to normal and we were able to save pretty much all of the world data I think. Let me know if you guys are missing something.

Thanks to a generous donation by Exovian, we now have enough money to keep a smaller server going for at least a couple of months. Right now there’s no plugins installed yet, and the Velothi-Mountains world probably won’t be uploaded for a while until we can get everything sorted server-side. But the server is online, and you can join and play vanilla 1.8 right now.

You can find the new server at this IP Address: 198.144.179.229

It will take some time to get plugin replacements to restore most of the functionality we had before, and there’s a lot of settings files and config files to shift through, but rest assured we will eventually have things like Essentials, WorldEdit, and LogBlock in the hopefully near future.

For now, Merry Christmas and I hope you guys have fun with the fresh start!

Alright, so that news title has probably startled you, and that’s good because we need to have a discussion about where Kingdoms of Resdayn is going in the future. A lot has changed since the server first opened in October of 2011, Mojang no longer owns Minecraft, Bukkit is dead, and much of the Resdayn player base has dwindled down to only a few. The fact of the matter is, this server costs a fair amount to maintain, and while donations have never been forthcoming, there hasn’t been a single one in months and I can no longer afford to keep Kingdoms of Resdayn online with current expenses.That doesn’t mean this will be the end of course, I want to open up the fate of Resdayn to public discussion. We can move to a smaller server, after all, and I can probably afford to keep a $30 a month server going for a good while, though this will mean starting fresh with a brand new world and new server architecture. It has been pointed out to me, repeatedly, that our server worlds are essentially overpopulated graveyards of old builds, and that our server architecture is hopelessly archaic and would not be easy to update. Starting fresh may be our best chance, and since Spiggot has released support for Minecraft 1.8 we could even start out on the latest version of Minecraft and build our plugin base from there. That’s if you guys want the server to keep going though, so please let me know what your opinion is over on the forums!

Another option is to, of course, just let Resdayn die and upload the server files to DropBox so you guys can download it for your own use. Really, we’ll be uploading the server files anyway with the above option as well.

Of course, if we somehow, by some miracle, get enough donations to keep the server going, we can keep things as they are, but I have to admit I would question the wisdom of such a decision given how old everything on the server is and we would probably only be delaying the inevitable.

Anyway, please post your thoughts on what you would like to see happen to Resdayn here on the forums. The server will be shutting down on December 22nd and a full backup will be made available for public download. Please make sure to empty your player inventory into a chest to make sure everything is saved in the backup!

This is once again a little late, but regardless the fourteenth build competition has now come to a close, and the judging is complete. A total of three entries were submitted this time around, continuing the tradition of low participation.

For this competition each entry was judged by three separate judges and was rated in three categories (Theme, Effort, and Design) on a 1-10 point scale. The theme for this round was Temples, Shrines and the Occult, entries could use anything related to this theme, whether fiction, classical mythology, or real-world religions. The entry with the most points won.

Without further ado, the results.

CreeperGal’s Severed Head and Skull

Judge 1: Theme – 9, Uniqueness – 8, Design – 8

Judge 2: Theme – 9, Uniqueness – 7, Design – 5

Judge 3: Theme – 6, Uniqueness – 5, Design – 8

Total Points: 65

JapDragon’s Roman Mausoleum

Judge 1: Theme – 9, Uniqueness – 10, Design – 8

Judge 2: Theme – 7, Uniqueness – 9, Design – 8

Judge 3: Theme – 9, Uniqueness – 10, Design – 8

Total Points: 78

Caro’s Halloween-Themed Tel Branora

Judge 1: Theme – 8, Uniqueness – 9, Design – 10

Judge 2: Theme – 7, Uniqueness – 10, Design – 10

Judge 3: Theme – 9, Uniqueness – 10, Design – 9

Total Points: 82

And the winners are…

1st Place – Caro!

2nd Place – JapDragon!

3rd Place – CreeperGal!

Congrats to everyone who participated, they all spent a lot of time and effort on their builds and well-deserve their rewards!

Once again, it’s been a while since the last competition, but I’m happy to present the official fifteenth build competition!

*Build Challenge – Everything Halloween

This month’s challenge is to build anything related to Halloween or Tales and Tallows as it’s known in the Elder Scrolls universe. For example, you could build a giant pumpkin (or the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!), or a horror-themed haunted house, or any other Halloween-like decorations. Anything related to Halloween will be accepted, and as usual you can use any kind of building material, provided you get them yourselves. Builds will be judged in three categories: Theme (did it match the theme of the competition?), Uniqueness (did you build the same thing as everyone else?), and Design (how well is it designed?). The competition ends on November 15th.

This was supposed to be posted yesterday, and I apologize for the delay. Video footage for episode five of Morrowind Modding Showcases was inexplicably corrupted and that ended up taking all day.

Regardless, the fourteenth build competition has now come to a close, and the judging is complete. A total of three entries were submitted this time around, with a few unfinished entries not quite meeting the competition qualifications.

For this competition each entry was judged by three separate judges and was rated in three categories (Theme, Effort, and Design) on a 1-10 point scale. The theme for this round was Temples, Shrines and the Occult, entries could use anything related to this theme, whether fiction, classical mythology, or real-world religions. The entry with the most points won.

Without further ado, the results.

Ace’s Hidden Temple

Judge 1: Theme – 10, Effort – 6, Design – 7

Judge 2: Theme – 7, Effort – 7, Design – 7

Judge 3: Theme – 8, Effort – 8, Design – 8

Total Points: 68

Jap’s Island of Minervina

Judge 1: Theme – 10, Effort – 9, Design – 9

Judge 2: Theme – 9, Effort – 10, Design – 10

Judge 3: Theme – 9, Effort – 9, Design – 9

Total Points: 84

Pedo’s Shrine of Zeus

Judge 1: Theme – 10, Effort – 6, Design – 7

Judge 2: Theme – 7, Effort – 7, Design – 7

Judge 3: Theme – 9, Effort – 8, Design – 9

Total Points: 70

And the winners are…

1st Place – Japdragon!

2nd Place – Pedo_Bear_Jr!

3rd Place – Ace_Case!

Congrats to everyone who participated, they all spent a lot of time and effort on their builds and well-deserve their rewards!

Just a reminder for everyone, the fourteenth build competition, “Shrines, Temples and the Occult” ends on August 18th! Do remember to post your coordinates, either over on the forums, on the coordinates board across from the temple in Spawn Plaza, or message them to Darkelfguy in game!

In other news, we’ll be re-enabling NPCs and NPC quests again in the near future, as the plugins we were waiting on to update have finally done so. On a similar note, we’re not planning to jump on Minecraft version 1.7.10 quite yet, but we may be doing that in the next week or two.

Well, there’s no denying it, this build competition is veeeeeery late! This competition was supposed to be posted back in April to correspond with the Blood Moon, yet here we are near the end of June! I apologize to everyone for the significant delay on my part in getting things organized and back on track. In any event, I present the fourteenth build challenge!

*Build Challenge – Shrines, Temples and the Occult

This month’s challenge is to build a shrine, temple or something of the occult dedicated to any of your choice of deity, daedra, daemon, or Elder Thing from a long forgotten age. For example, you could build a shrine dedicated to Sheogorath, or a temple of Diabella, or build something from Lovecraftian lore! Anything related to shrines, temples or the occult will be accepted, and as usual, you can use any building material you want provided you get these building materials yourself. Builds will be judged in three categories: Theme (does it match with the theme of the competition?), Effort (how much work did you put into it?), and Design (how well is it designed?). The competition ends on August 18th.